allynh@ucbvax.ARPA (Allyn Hardyck) (08/09/85)
I'm sure there's already been a discussion on this that I somehow missed so
maybe someone can send me the gist of it, otherwise..
Disclaimers are becoming more and more widespread, either with a semi-humorous
or matter-of-fact style, from mostly company machines. Now there are two
reasons for their existence that I can see:
1) People are somehow becoming conscientious of their postings and voluntarily
disavow the company's knowledge of their actions. This I doubt (pardon
my scepticism).
2) The companies are (politely?) asking that people put it in their messages
(I can just see a default .disclaimer file) to prevent becoming part of
the latest wave of multimillion-dollar lawsuits by someone taking offense
at some random posting. While a safe move, it seems to me to be a clear
violation of personal rights - who are they to say what you put in your
letters? And hold some punishment over your head if you fail to? I
personally doubt a disclaimer would stop anyone from including a company
in a libel suit or whatever.
allynwfi@rti-sel.UUCP (William Ingogly) (08/09/85)
In article <9784@ucbvax.ARPA> allynh@ucbvax.UUCP (Allyn Hardyck) writes: >2) The companies are (politely?) asking that people put it in their messages > (I can just see a default .disclaimer file) to prevent becoming part of > the latest wave of multimillion-dollar lawsuits by someone taking offense > at some random posting. While a safe move, it seems to me to be a clear > violation of personal rights - who are they to say what you put in your > letters? And hold some punishment over your head if you fail to? ... ^^^^^^^ But a posting to the net is hardly the same thing as a private letter, since it's open to the scrutiny of perhaps thousands of people nationwide or overseas. A news article is more like an article published in a limited circulation magazine or perhaps a letter to the editor in a newspaper. When you post to the net, the organization you work for is clearly visible in the heading so in some sense you're posting as a representative of your company. There is a certain feeling among people posting to the net that they're members of a quasi-anarchistic society of free spirits bound together by the electronic media. This illusion is easy to maintain if you're posting from academia but much more difficult to maintain if you're posting from an account at your place of employment. Contrary to popular belief, someone DOES subsidize the storage and transmission of net articles and it seems to me this fact must be taken into consideration when we write articles and post them to the net. I've never written a check to pay for my numerous postings to the net; have you? As a consequence, I try to keep my foul mouth, hot temper, whacko political orientation, and belief in 40 foot orange orangutans from the planet Mungo under control when I write an article. :-) -- Cheers, Bill Ingogly
slerner@sesame.UUCP (Simcha-Yitzchak Lerner) (08/11/85)
> I'm sure there's already been a discussion on this that I somehow missed so > maybe someone can send me the gist of it, otherwise.. > > Disclaimers are becoming more and more widespread, either with a semi-humorous > or matter-of-fact style, from mostly company machines. Now there are two > reasons for their existence that I can see: > > 1) People are somehow becoming conscientious of their postings and voluntarily > disavow the company's knowledge of their actions. This I doubt (pardon > my scepticism). > I can't speak for the rest of the net, but I place my disclaimer in voluntarily. (I'm not even running on a Lotus machine) Why? I don't want every word out of my mouth being flung about attributed to Lotus. Their my crazy ideas and they can't have them! -- Opinions expressed are public domain, and do not belong to Lotus Development Corp. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Simcha-Yitzchak Lerner {genrad|ihnp4|ima}!wjh12!talcott!sesame!slerner {cbosgd|harvard}!talcott!sesame!slerner slerner%sesame@harvard.ARPA
greenber@timeinc.UUCP (Ross M. Greenberg) (08/12/85)
There are a lot of jerks out there. At least ten times in the last
six months, some idiot has taken offense to some of my pearls of wisdom,
and said "And just look at what TIME, Inc. had to say about it".
My opinion is these people have a problem with big words.
--
------------------------------------------------------------------
Ross M. Greenberg @ Time Inc, New York
--------->{vax135 | ihnp4}!timeinc!greenber<---------
I highly doubt that Time Inc. would make me their spokesperson.
----
"I had a cat. She died. Had a goldfish. Died. Guppies. Died.
Gerbils. Died. Tippy. Died." - little girl
"Alright! So I don't like small animals!" - Mr. Deathdmcanzi@watdcsu.UUCP (David Canzi) (08/15/85)
See below. -- David Canzi Disclaimer: The above opinions are not the opinions of the University of Waterloo, the Canzi family, the male gender, the white race, the city of Waterloo, the province of Ontario, the country of Canada, people with Italian ancestry, blue-eyed people, or the human species. Anybody who thinks my membership in any of the above groups somehow implies that my opinions and attitudes reflect on those groups is a damn fool. The need for disclaimers is most likely an effect of a country having too many lawyers. Nobody required me to add this disclaimer to my message, I did it voluntarily, solely for the purpose of expressing my opinion toward disclaimers. I won't do it again.
doug@terak.UUCP (Doug Pardee) (08/24/85)
Something to keep in the back of your mind is that a disclaimer will
not necessarily "make everything okay."
Here are three examples (two of these I have seen personally)...
1) Messages posted by some person clearly show that he does not have a
firm grip on reality. Disclaimer or not, the simple fact that he
is a (presumably important) part of his employer's team will bring
the reliability of his company's products into question.
2) Messages posted by some person indicate that he has no interest in
doing a proper job. This is a legitimate opinion, but the same
concept as in (1) applies.
3) Messages posted by some person disparage his company's products.
This is also a legitimate opinion, but...
--
Doug Pardee -- CalComp -- {seismo!noao,decvax!noao,ihnp4}!terak!doug